1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to an electrical connector, which is small in size, easier to manufacture and assemble, and versatile in electrical connecting.
2. Description of Prior Arts
The electrical connectors have been widely used in computer, communication, and instrumentation equipments for connecting various devices or apparatuses together. As shown in FIG. 1, the present existing electrical connectors are unavoidably provided with connecting elements having a conductor portion B and two free ends A and C. As shown, one of the free ends A forms a soldering portion for connecting to a cable, or for inserting into a printed circuit board. The other free end C forms a connecting terminal for connecting either to a male connector or to a female connector.
The conductor portion B of the present existing electrical connectors are usually enclosed in a plastic-made accommodating member 10. Utilizing this conventional manner, the accommodating member of the electrical connector have to be redesigned to conform with different customized arrangements of the connecting elements. This makes the manufacture and assembly of the electrical connector more complicated, and thus more time- and cost-consuming. Besides, due to the problems encountered in the injection molding of the plastic-made accommodating members and in the impact force which can be endured by the molding accommodating member, the capabilities to reduce the size of the electrical connector and to enhance the complexity of the connecting elements in the accommodating member are limited.
Moreover, at the present time, no standard has been set forth for the gender of the connectors. Therefore, some of the connectors provided in the equipments may be male connectors, and some may be female connectors. Thus, for example, if a user finds that a connector in his equipment is a female one and the connector in his cable is also a female one, then a transferring device has to be utilized for connecting the two female connectors. A conventional transferring device is shown in FIG. 2. As shown, the two free ends of the connecting element form two connecting head 2a and 2b, and the plastic-made accommodating member 20 provides a slit 21 for the connecting element to "penetrate" therethrough and fixed therein. This technique, however, is still within the scope of enclosing the conductor portion of the connecting element within a plastic-made accommodating member. Consequently, this kind of transferring device also suffers from the same drawbacks as the aforementioned electrical connector.
If the distance between two adjacent connectors, i.e. two adjacent slits, need to be shortened to accommodate more connecting elements, not only the result of the injection molding process becomes unpredictable, but the impacting force may likely break up the slits. For these reasons, it becomes difficult to reduce the size of the electrical connector, or to enhance the complexity of the connecting element therein.